Beginner Speaker Choices

I recently upgraded my television to the Sony 34" KV34HS510
hdtv, and bought the Harman/Kardon AVR230 Receiver.

I have had a set of Onkyo 5.1 speakers that I bought at CC about 1-2 years ago (time flies....:b )....They are the Onkyo SKS-HT500, which I think were around $300 for the set. They sound pretty darned good for 300 bucks.

Anyway, I would like to upgrade the speakers, beginning with the fronts. I want something that will be great for music as I listen to a lot of music, but will also be good for movies.

I have been reading this forum off and on for the last couple of weeks, but find myself more bewildered than ever. I am pretty much a novice at home theater at this point.

Anyway, I can't spend a whole lot of money for the speakers (I am thinking $500 or less for the pair). The room is 13 x 20 feet.

I would then obviously add pieces later on.

Then the question becomes once I have the two fronts, can I still use the center, sub, and surround speakers, or would it sound cruddy?

Consumer Reports had rated Sony SS-MF750H number one in November, but I could not find any posts regarding these speakers here. Please help!!

Speakers are a very personal thing. I would go out and listen to as many as possible to see what you like. For HT, it is very important the front three match. I would look to buy a center as the next purchase. My wife and I are big music listeners, so I'll throw out some things we liked:

Boston CR95 fronts. This is what we went with. (1/2 off on closeout at Tweeter for $275. You could add the $200 CRC center for your budget).

Boston VR1. They replaced the CR95.

Axiom M22ti ($400 pr). I haven't listened to these but I own the M3ti and they are very nice.

Energy C3 or C1 (you could actually find the C1 and C1-1 center for your $500)

Paradigm Mini Monitors. I haven't listened to these, but my wife uses the Titans in her music room and is very happy with them.

There are many other good options, but these are worth look at. Good luck!

I did a little searching for you... I found a link on an audioreview(dot)com. Still can't post links, so bear with me:

forums(dot)audioreview(dot)com/showthread(dot)php?t=354

They were sort of mentioned here, but from the sound of it, they may not be much more of an improvement over the onkyos (which do sound great for the money spent):

www(dot)agoraquest(dot)com/viewtopic(dot)php?topic=12521&forum=51

Didn't sound too promising on the validity of consumer report reviews... I would definately audition them first if you're thinking about buying.

You could look at Aperions: www(dot)aperionaudio(dot)com
They seem to give you a lot of speaker for the buck ($360 a pair), and every review I've seen for them are glowing... I know there's a couple of people here who have them and love them...I think Mitch_J has some. Aperion also has a 30 day no-risk trial (they'll pay for return shipping!)

A lot of people like onix rockets too in your price range. Their RS150 bookshelf speakers are $399 a pair: